”Ever wonder why Ballard, Green Lake and other north Seattle neighborhoods are so white, and the Central District and the Rainier Valley are so diverse? Blame housing prices for a start; whiter neighborhoods tend to be more expensive, and white people tend to have more money than African Americans, Hispanics and some Asian groups.

”But also blame history.

”Racist housing covenants once restricted where people of color could live in Seattle, largely in the northend. Ballard didn’t want “Ethiopians” (blacks), Magnolia had a problem with “Malays” (Filipinos), and Broadmoor shut out “Hebrews” (Jews).”

So, the dark side here isn’t just that there was pretty strong racism in our past. Hell, the nation has a racist past. No, for us the knee-jerk response to even trying to talk about race is kinda dark. To move forward, we need to come to terms with the forces that have shaped the world were in. To close our eyes to it is to embrace darkness … ahem. And so say all of us.

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Under the headline “Was your Seattle neighborhood racist?” we got a ton of blowback from people who assumed we were saying — Seattleites are racists! Which wasn’t what we were saying in the story.

The story was a dive into the past — the same past that has led to this future and the state of racial divide in Seattle neighborhoods.

”Ever wonder why Ballard, Green Lake and other north Seattle neighborhoods are so white, and the Central District and the Rainier Valley are so diverse? Blame housing prices for a start; whiter neighborhoods tend to be more expensive, and white people tend to have more money than African Americans, Hispanics and some Asian groups.

”But also blame history.

”Racist housing covenants once restricted where people of color could live in Seattle, largely in the northend. Ballard didn’t want “Ethiopians” (blacks), Magnolia had a problem with “Malays” (Filipinos), and Broadmoor shut out “Hebrews” (Jews).”

So, the dark side here isn’t just that there was pretty strong racism in our past. Hell, the nation has a racist past. No, for us the knee-jerk response to even trying to talk about race is kinda dark. To move forward, we need to come to terms with the forces that have shaped the world were in. To close our eyes to it is to embrace darkness … ahem. And so say all of us.